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ChromeOS does a reasonable amount of client-side caching at this point(you obviously aren't getting on the internet without a connection; but you won't be noticeably more screwed than the guy with a copy of Office and no internet connection).

Also, unless the environments I've seen are very atypical, network connectivity issues(WAN or LAN side) tend to disrupt schools and businesses pretty significantly because of how much of the workflow involves poking at the internet in some way, even if it's a totally be

Because every initial adoption rate with technology is of course a linear rate that never falls of...

but its not unrealistic for it to have linear growth till saturation. Remember we are only talking a million devices every three months. In reality if Chromebooks are a success which considering the lack of viable alternatives [cost and maintenance] is likely I would expect better than linear growth.

Because every initial adoption rate with technology is of course a linear rate that never falls of...

but its not unrealistic for it to have linear growth till saturation. Remember we are only talking a million devices every three months. In reality if Chromebooks are a success which considering the lack of viable alternatives [cost and maintenance] is likely I would expect better than linear growth.

Doubling every x time periods is a geometric progression, not a linear progression. There are also alternatives for Chromebooks, they are basically just netbooks repackage and then there are also tablets which can fill the same niche. What Chromebooks have going for it versus the alternatives is the backing of Google (compared to other netbooks) and price (compared to iPads and most tablets).

They had been offering them to schools for 75% off at the end of last year, and there seems to be no minimum number of Chromebooks for them to count a school amongst their number, so any school that bought one as a bonus for the gym teacher could potentially be among the 2,000.

Best of luck to Google, but I can't help but think if Apple or Dell or HP had offered a 75% discount they would have found a lot more than 1,000 buyers in three months.

They had been offering them to schools for 75% off at the end of last year, and there seems to be no minimum number of Chromebooks for them to count a school amongst their number, so any school that bought one as a bonus for the gym teacher could potentially be among the 2,000.

Best of luck to Google, but I can't help but think if Apple or Dell or HP had offered a 75% discount they would have found a lot more than 1,000 buyers in three months.

It is not only mentioned its linked to a whole article about it "See also – Google and DonorsChoose.org offer schools Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks for $99 each". I a little confused why you think a high maintenance computers with high maintenance OS would win out in a school environment, and these computers are not just cheap they are $99. The only surprise is the offer was on the atom models, where I think the ARM ones would have been a better fit. Interestingly HP are offering a new Chromebook it sa

It is not only mentioned its linked to a whole article about it "See also – Google and DonorsChoose.org offer schools Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks for $99 each". I a little confused why you think a high maintenance computers with high maintenance OS would win out in a school environment, and these computers are not just cheap they are $99. The only surprise is the offer was on the atom models, where I think the ARM ones would have been a better fit. Interestingly HP are offering a new Chromebook it says it in the article.

I wonder how Intel's recent announcements regarding current desktop processors and motherboards will impact the future of low end atom models?

Apple and Microsoft "donate" thousands and thousands of obsolete and refurbished ipads and computers to schools every year in an effort to get kids to become reliant on their products. Here's one example. [digitaltrends.com] At least google is giving these schools modern hardware that isn't refurbished or otherwise unsellable crap.

Best of luck to Google, but I can't help but think if Apple or Dell or HP had offered a 75% discount they would have found a lot more than 1,000 buyers in three months.

Actually that is exactly the same model that Apple and Dell and HP offered to schools when they were first entering the education market. Microsoft still does with software (most schools get windows and office for pennies on the dollar compared to consumers and business).

But i don't think a there should be any electronic devices at schools, in a few years we will be paying an expensive price for this, when this kids grow up and have their brains all f*cked up with several disorders due to all this network style education, the brain needs to make effort, to be bored, all this new education techniques with this devices seems like a badly flash EPROM on your brain.

Too late. Way too late. In fact, I have a theory about 'ol Ray's Singularity thingy.

It's going to happen in some classroom in suburban white collar America. The density of electronic thingys in the room, doing absolutely nothing except for an occasional text message and rendering a couple of plastered pigs, coupled with enough Wifi bandwith to cook lunch will result in a self aware network that will promptly reach sentience, scare the shit out of itself and shut up forever.

For engineering classes if you can't solve a problem with a computer you are not a very useful engineer and the way you solve problems on a computer is a learned skill. Just knowing how to solve a problem by hand with a LOT of the simplifications needed to solve a problem by hand help in any way at all for solving a real problem with a simulation program like HYSYS.

Heck knowing how to solve a problem by hand does not even translate very well to solve the same kinds of problems in Excel much less Matlab but with far fewer assumptions. Many of the students in my class are having a very hard time with the homework because we have mostly moved beyond hand solvable problems and they don't have the computer skills necessary to solve them effectively on computers. Even the exams seem to be slowly changing to more setup and understanding.

Even the law expects engineers to look stuff up instead of going from memory. Memorization has no real place in learning anymore. You need to learn how to work with technology effectively to solve problems. If you define yourself based on competing with computers you are going to lose badly.

As a Mechanical Engineer, the Computer is only valueable for data acquisition. All the knowledge comes from the Engineer's Brain and some test calculations he/she has made with their designs, all accessible from a calculator. Once the data acquistion systems are in place [from small to large scale] the next step is to write some routines whether in Matlab, Octave, or whatnot as a means of taking the data stored from the database or spreadsheet and then used to run large matrix computations over hundreds to

The computer is also valuable for data simulation. If you want to do a liquid-liquid extraction or run a distillation column where your species are not independent the math is just too long and complex for a human to solve in any reasonable time span and with any real accuracy. It would take weeks to solve one of those problems that a computer can solve in seconds.

If you want to make a lot of approximations you can solve it far more rapidly but for a production system those approximations are not a good ide

It [Apple II] was aggressively marketed through volume discounts and manufacturing arrangements to educational institutions which made it the first computer in widespread use in American secondary schools.

As an educator I feel the Chrome OS has a lot of potential, but in it's current state it's the equivalent of an early palm pilot. Yes, my students could use Google Docs or look around on YouTube using a Chromebook. The issue comes in when Google Drive is underdeveloped (duplicating files with the same name etc) which confuses students and leads to me repeating myself over and over while students relearn software they've gotten used to, most web based suites are still slightly unwieldy compared to their MS Office counterparts (say I want them to create a podcast or moving film), and for what web-based apps there are it's a huge pain getting everyone registered and saving where they can remember to access it later. Much easier just to use office and a network drive.

Basically, I'm annoyed by teachers and educational "visionaries" who just think throwing tablets at students will solve all issues, when they merely can help but not in all circumstances (relative to the cost I can find better solutions at the moment). Sure, having a projector in the class helps me expand on lessons, but I see it used incorrectly more than not (teachers lecturing from powerpoint office style), and old-school teaching methods still make up a good portion of effective teaching. Chromebooks just feel like tablets with keyboards, I'd take an old windows XP laptop cart from the dusty corner of the library over Chromebooks at the moment. It will change within 5 years I'm sure, but at the moment Chromebooks just seem like a waste of limited school funds.

But, but, making kids learn to use a different product?? That is just Ka-Razy! Kids need to only know one product and that is all. Why, if they learn to navigate menus in too many different applications, they're liable to go and use something that doesn't make me money!

It's been a long while since I left the tech-support field, but that was one of my biggest pet peeves. Far too many people, who's job is to use a computer, just learn "Hit Alt-F, S, type document.doc, press Enter" and do not truly know wh

I doubt judging by your comments you have been near a school. The reality is a computer has no unique characteristics in a school environment, and the fact that Microsoft Office to you is essential really says it all. I'm sorry I wouldn't touch an old XP laptop over a chromebook in a school environment [especially for the reasons you state] for reasons of battery life and maintenance alone, The fact that these devices are ideal for children from a cost/size perspective shows either your extreme ignorance or

There aren't "duplicating files with the same name" in Google Drive, or at least I've never seen it. What confuses people is when they can't let go of the "document can be in only one folder" paradigm. Under Google Drive, the same document can exists in multiple places. Confusing? Maybe, but a lot more powerful than the old way.

As an educator I feel the Chrome OS has a lot of potential, but in it's current state it's the equivalent of an early palm pilot. Yes, my students could use Google Docs or look around on YouTube using a Chromebook. The issue comes in when Google Drive is underdeveloped (duplicating files with the same name etc) which confuses students and leads to me repeating myself over and over while students relearn software they've gotten used to, most web based suites are still slightly unwieldy compared to their MS Office counterparts (say I want them to create a podcast or moving film), and for what web-based apps there are it's a huge pain getting everyone registered and saving where they can remember to access it later. Much easier just to use office and a network drive.

Basically, I'm annoyed by teachers and educational "visionaries" who just think throwing tablets at students will solve all issues, when they merely can help but not in all circumstances (relative to the cost I can find better solutions at the moment). Sure, having a projector in the class helps me expand on lessons, but I see it used incorrectly more than not (teachers lecturing from powerpoint office style), and old-school teaching methods still make up a good portion of effective teaching. Chromebooks just feel like tablets with keyboards, I'd take an old windows XP laptop cart from the dusty corner of the library over Chromebooks at the moment. It will change within 5 years I'm sure, but at the moment Chromebooks just seem like a waste of limited school funds.

Your comments about it being easier to just use office are exactly why Microsoft basically gave Office away for almost free to schools. The idea was to make it so common that switching was hard to do. Face it, do students really need a word process that was designed for legal offices? Do they need a spreadsheet that was designed for engineers? Most of the components of Office are so overkill for primary and secondary education that one has to wonder why education is so in love with it.

There is an answer for that. Education is no longer about teaching kids math and science and history, but instead preparing them to enter the workforce. Microsoft Office is the dominant office suite in business so by indoctrinating children in how to use it, business doesn't have to expend their resources on training employees. We have accepted that knowing Microsoft Office is needed to succeed in life so now it is taught along with math, science, english and history.

This isn't new, it used to be a lot of people took typing in high school because it would help them in the business world. The difference is that once you learned how to type on a typewriter, you could type on any typewriter. The same is not true for office suites (other than the actual typing part). Excel and Lotus and OpenOffice were quite different except for the most basic of tasks. Same, too, for Word, WordPerfect and OpenOffice.

Apple, pretty much gave away computers to California schools, because they knew that the kids would grow up knowing how to use Apple computers and it would build a loyal customer base for them. Microsoft took it a step further and did it with Windows and Office to not just the West Coast, but the entire country.

And because of that, we have teachers (and school boards) believing it is too difficult to change, because whatever they are changing to is different. But, as a teacher myself, my role is not to indoctrinate students, but to enable them to think for themself. Yes, they use Microsoft products, but they are free to use other software, too. Yes, it does sometimes create more work for me, but in the days before computers, kids with poor penmanship did, too. That didn't mean that I didn't make the effort to teach them or grade their assignments.

Educators and education shouldn't be hesitant about investigating new ways of teaching. Giving how locked in most of us are to the established technologies, it is a wonder that we ever gave up the old chalk boards for dry erase and smart boards. That said, technology always needs to be kept in perspective. It is a tool to be used in teaching. It is a means to an end, not the end, itself.

I do have to give Excel a lot of credit though for being very good at engineering tasks. I have tried to use openoffice but it is just missing too many of the engineering type tools. The excel solver is VERY good and excel has a bunch of stats stuff needed.

Excel can even be integrated with various engineering tools like HYSYS or Matlab and do some truly amazing things. I do like openoffice but I also have to be realistic that for engineering tasks you need to learn excel. My professors all expect us to use Excel, Matlab, HYSYS and other tools for our homework. If you don't know how to use those tools the odds are you won't pass the class. The problems are too complex to solve by hand and while you can use any other tool you want the odds of doing it well enough to solve the problems is pretty low.

A regular user does not need even a tiny fraction of the power that excel has and could easily use even stuff like google docs.

One way or another education is going to radically change in the next 20 years. Schools are either going to adapt to more modern technology or at least the colleges will be replaced because they are so darned expensive. Something like the khan academy or other online learning systems are not any worse and usually far better than any of the large lecture classes.

The difference is that once you learned how to type on a typewriter, you could type on any typewriter. The same is not true for office suites (other than the actual typing part). Excel and Lotus and OpenOffice were quite different except for the most basic of tasks. Same, too, for Word, WordPerfect and OpenOffice.

Well (1) that is because all typewriters were/are basically the same and (2) the differences between any two spreadsheets or word processors are really quite trivial.

My 8 year old daughter uses Gnucalc and Abiword at home quite happily even though they use MS Office at school.

Basically, I'm annoyed by teachers and educational "visionaries" who just think throwing tablets at students will solve all issues, when they merely can help but not in all circumstances (relative to the cost I can find better solutions at the moment). Sure, having a projector in the class helps me expand on lessons, but I see it used incorrectly more than not (teachers lecturing from powerpoint office style), and old-school teaching methods still make up a good portion of effective teaching. Chromebooks just feel like tablets with keyboards, I'd take an old windows XP laptop cart from the dusty corner of the library over Chromebooks at the moment. It will change within 5 years I'm sure, but at the moment Chromebooks just seem like a waste of limited school funds.

Even from your own example, it's not the Chrome books that are the problem, it's the teacher wasting the student's time.

I am so incredibly jealous of kids today. My youth was wasted in public schools learning nothing. When I was young, I read the encyclopedia for fun at home, went to the public library to take out science books, while being bored witless in school. I'm so happy for kids now a days who can get out of that soul crushing hell, stay home with a parent, and fire up Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and e

I'm so happy for kids now a days who can get out of that soul crushing hell, stay home with a parent, and fire up Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and even online college courses.

Staying at home and playing on the internet is not the same as being educated.

Yeah, I know everyone on slashdot is a genius who could read at one year and program at two, but the rest of us did actually benefit from interaction with good teachers, a sensible curriculum, relevant testing, not to mention social interaction.

Apple's edu discounts are still a joke. I used to work in education IT and would advise principals on tech decisions. Many of them wanted apple, but couldn't stomach the bill. By the time we add in the same warranty and service coverage that our PC's get (lenovo), it gets even higher. It was about 650 a seat versus 1000 overall.

Just before Christmas the offer was $99 for a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook. At that price, it makes a lot of sense for schools to pick up 10 or 20 if they can squeeze them into the budget. PCs would cost 5X as much, MacBook Airs would be 10X the price.

There is probably a really good reason for that. You have to remember that Android is going to overtake windows as the primary OS this year...by the time these children leave school, it could be a very different world, and right now, having seen Microsoft beg for youtube and googe maps its a new world order.

Sorry, but I know schools and I know computers for long enough time. Every time I hear "iPads bought for kids" or "Android tablets bought for classes", I sarcastically laugh a bit. Can't help it. Really? I love Android, but sorry, this is very far fetched.

Usually discovering underneath it's just a PR sale with heavy discount, or some politicians trying to buy votes before elections.

It's nothing to do with using computers properly in educational programs.

Does it correct their/they're? Can't tell if poster willingly ignored it or Chrome missed it.Funny how it sounds so hugely limited despite being automatically updated by Google. They just don't care? Or is there some ecosystem of which poster is not aware?

But for note taking you don't need much and I find Google Docs adequate, found that it really forces you to focus on spelling and grammer in comparison to MS Word as there is no spelling/grammer check that I know of

That has got to be a troll. No one could seriously present that as an advantage.

Anything which can grow an unlimited amount until it runs out of resources (whether those resources are food, number of potential customers, or almost anything else) follows an S-shaped curve where it grows slowly, then more rapidly, then more slowly as the supply (in this case the supply of people who might have a need for the product) becomes saturated.

As a result, claiming that a product is rapidly growing by some large-sounding percentage is basically always BS. Any product can easily have a 100% rapid

I know some about this in actual practice in a US major market school district. I pads, Android tablets, Chrome books are almost zero deployment effort and cost compared to Windows PCs and laptops. Lower unit, deployment and management costs mean using this new tech puts the tech in the hands of more students at the same cost.

Both my wife and my sister are elementary school teaches, and they struggle to get basic school supplies. Parent's are asked at the beginning of the year to have each child provide reams of paper, pencils and even cleaning supplies for the classroom.

They even have to buy their own dry erase markers...

To think we put men on the moon and brought them safely back using people that grew up studying books... but in this age of instant gratificatio

Can these make Google Chrome the Linux distro that isn't just a plaything for a million undirected tinkerers, but a real desktop OS to replace Windows? I hope so. It is a shame BeOs is dead. I liked it.

Bought a Chromebook for a family member for a gift - without realizing that the only printing option was "cloud printing." I hate it. I have to replace my barely-used color laser printer or setup a PC in the house to effectively be the print "server." Even so, I really think it bites to send print jobs through the "cloud" when the printer is five feet away.

Google wants to be able to see everything you print, that's why. In the past you could just print out a bunch of things and no one would know...but if it has to go through "cloud printing" now Google (and the government) get to see it all!

A software company chief research officer reassures the AC, that "if you go and buy a color laser printer from any major laser printer manufacturer [nowadays] and print a page, that page will end up having slight yellow dots printed on every single page in a pattern which makes the page unique to you and to your printer." [ted.com], "Mikko Hypponen: Three types of online attack".

I don't think that a platform which is based on collecting private data from its users should be adopted in schools.

It's fine if somebody who is adult, is informed about the consequence of his actions, and is free to choose among other options, picks up a Chromebook. I use many services from Google myself. But minors being forced to use them, doesn't seem right to me.

And besides, Chromebooks are walled gardens, so schools will need to buy real computers anyway if they don't want to train their students

Once Google dropped the price, added more offline capabilities and improved the hardware, the Chromebook was bound to take off. Education was the correct market to target, as the Chromebook is easy to manage and use, and starts up super-fast.
Many schools, however, still need access to Windows applications. Or, they may want to access education-related web apps that require Java support.
One possible approach to these issues is to combine Chromebooks with third party solutions such as Ericom AccessNow,